Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister talked somewhat about the locally produced foods in our communities. Is there any type of strategy or plans to look at these miniature abattoirs that we have in our communities? We have one in Fort Good Hope and Deline we are looking at which were made in Hay River. We want to look at how we produce these local traditional foods to bring them into our GNWT’s institutions. The first two I think are the old folks’ home and the Stanton Hospital.

Is there any type of discussion happening with his colleagues to look at something like these two miniature abattoirs...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to go back on orders of the day; item 5, I believe it is.

---Unanimous consent granted

I certainly look forward to a breakdown as to where these infrastructure dollars are going to, which communities, regions, and how they are being taken advantage of by attracting tourism into their communities or region.

The tourism skill development contribution for mentorship and skill development, in this area too is a concern of mine that is this money being targeted for certain operators saying in here that are knowing that they’re doing well, or is this for new operators. Just basically maybe some briefing notes. You don’t have to explain everything to me, but I just want to know how we...

Thanks for the update. The Bear has a lot of power, hydro power, and moving forward, when you look at a business case for the people in Deline to look at putting in a hydro plant, they could look at a long-term vision how do we get that revenue, how do we make it pay itself. There’s Tulita, there’s Norman Wells that could possibly be hooked up, or Good Hope. You know, thinking out there, we have oil and gas activity across the river that may be able to use some of that energy. I think it’s no different than us putting money into a hydro grid down south of the lake here to other jurisdictions...

Madam Chair, just for the record here, the Minister stated that we are starting to move some petroleum positions around the Northwest Territories. Based on participation and the business case and looking at future projects, I want to state for the record that I’ve been asking for some time to put some of the petroleum positions into the Sahtu because that’s where the action is happening right now.

It’s almost like saying, well, let’s put the forest management headquarters in the Sahtu because things are happening in other areas. The Sahtu people are starting to wonder, in addition to the...

I appreciate the Minister’s response, Madam Chair. So, making the effort, would that then look at the possibility of having some period of time when the National Energy Board would actually be in the Sahtu, working out of there for a period of time, rather than coming from a different region or coming from Alberta or Calgary, coming up to the Sahtu? We need some man hours in the Sahtu for some comforting level of the ongoing operations with the oil companies.

Madam Chair, my question is on the contracting services from 2012-13. We were at a low number and it increases quite substantially to 2014-15. Can the Minister just briefly explain why the spike in the contracting services?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we come with this unique program that Mr. Ramsay is committing to look at and bring forward, it’s life on the land. The economy, that’s the business side, but I think it would be supporting the life on the land that supports our vision and goals of the 17th Assembly. I’ll ask the Minister, coming forward and getting some information back from our communities and seeing that we can pilot some type of unique program for the coming fall time. I’m not too sure if that’s too short of a time, but I will look forward to some type of a movement on this.

We certainly have supported the trappers, people who make their life on the land. It’s the point of view that we look at trapping or harvesting and being a fisherman, to being a trapper, to be a hunter. Some look at it as a business. We sometimes look at it as a way of life.

I want to ask the Minister of ITI, could he look across the different departments and say can we come up with a unique program, because we’re known for our uniqueness in the Northwest Territories through education, health, whatever, and say we can do this program, treatment, healthy living or education or whatever, but come...

Mr. Chair, the optimal end result of this discussion would be the Minister look at this, and given this year’s budget and again next year, we can come forward with these miniature abattoirs to say, yes, we have worked it out through the system and the regulations. For example, next year local traditional foods can be packaged, sent into these institutions to say now you have traditional foods. It will produce skill, economy and make use in the small communities. Maybe the Northern Store or Co-ops will be interested in having these foods on their shelves. My goal here is to see if this is...